


Prompt - Strange, Kashyyyk

by Munnin



Series: The Star Wars Write Stuff challenge. [43]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 07:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12452742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Munnin/pseuds/Munnin
Summary: NineAce is a Fleet trooper, not a ground-pounder. But a clone trooper follows orders.





	Prompt - Strange, Kashyyyk

NineAce tried not to look up. And up. And up. Because the towering trees were dizzying and falling over backwards would just be embarrassing. And clone troopers were not trained to be an embarrassment. 

He’d seen holo-images of Kashyyyk. They all had. The briefing had been thorough; outlining everything they needed to know about the world before the mission. But this was his first time on the forest world. His first time on any world other than Kamino. 

Not because he was fresh out of training. NineAce was no shiny, but all his combat experience to that point had been in the black. As a pilot, a naval fleet trooper. And he was proud of that. Proud of the service he’d given. 

But the ship he had been last assigned to had been damaged beyond repair in the Battle of Sullust and half the crew killed. The battle had cost the Republic dearly in ships. Ships that would take time and money to replace. 

And in the meantime, resources were allocated where they were needed. And right now, they were needed on the ground. 

The handful of them who had been reassigned to Kashyyyk were given a swift re-education; bringing them up to speed on what they needed to know to be infantry. To be ground-pounders. 

Needs must. A clone trooper’s duty is to serve. 

Or so NineAces kept telling himself.

But nothing prepared him for this. Not really. 

Not for the way the ground felt – uneven and shifting under his boots. The soft leaf-litter compacting in unpredictable ways. One moment spongy, the next jarringly hard. 

And the smell. He had never realised how spoilt he was living most of his life in filtered air. Scents would sneak up on him. The wet smell of rotting leaves, the sharp sweet sour of over-ripe fruit, the rank of animals. He would never dare say anything but the smell of Wookiee fur, especially wet Wookiee was especially repulsive to him.

And then there were the sounds. The chitter of living animals, the guttural growl of the Shyriiwook language, the sudden rushing swoops of things unseen in the canopy. The creak of the massive Wroshyr trees, as if you could hear them growing. 

He fought to keep it all hidden. How much every moment on the ground threw him off balance. 

He was a clone trooper of the Galactic Republic. He was made to serve. And he would. To the best of his ability. 

The third night of the march, he drew first watch. The thought that they couldn’t just drop nearer their target had perplexed him during the briefing. But now, under the canopy, dense as the shield he’d ever seen, he understood why they had to walk. 

Twilight was the time of day he’d come dread the most on Kashyyyk. The half-light, when the shapes moving at the corners of his vison. Shapes that could be Wookiee scouts, could be clankers, or could be monsters. 

Or Webweavers. The less he thought about them, the better. 

Spiders the size of a man. In what galaxy was *that* okay?

And their heads-up displays were next to useless here. The Wroshyr wood was so dense it blocked everything. All someone, or thing, approaching them would need to do was duck behind one of the starfighter wide trunks and they’d be gone off his scopes. 

But he stood the watch. Protect their backs while the others made camp, prepared food. He would serve. He was a trooper.

A shape shifted around one of the trees and NineAce brought up his rifle, hoping he wasn’t about to embarrass himself by jumping at shadows. 

“Peace, trooper.” General Luminara Unduli called softly, her long robes somehow never seeming to snag on the layer of rotting leaf-litter and detritus. “All is at peace with Force tonight.”

“As you say, General.” NineAce lowered his rifle, saluting.

The Jedi master give him a gentle smile and shook her head. “Be at ease.” She came over to stand by him, leaning on one of the great Wroshyr trees as she watched stars come out through gaps in the canopy. “How do you like Kashyyyk, trooper? You seem ill at ease.”

The question caught him off-guard and NineAce’s found himself worrying what had given him away. “Not overly fond of those webweavers, General.” He answered, trying to sound stoic. 

It must have sounded like a joke to her because the Jedi chuckled softly. “Nor I. But they are creatures of the Force, just as we are. As long as we’re no threat to them, they’ll be no threat to us.”

NineAce didn’t answer. Mostly because he didn’t believe it. They made his flesh crawl. Thankfully the armour hid it. 

“But you didn’t answer my question, trooper.” Luminara prompted gently. “How do you like this world.”

After a moment’s deliberation, NineAce decided to answer honestly. After all, you didn’t lie to a Jedi. “Can’t really say, sir. I don’t have anything to compare it to.”

Her brow furled. “How so?” 

He shrugged, “This is my first deployment dirtside.”

She cocked her head, her liquid blue eyes narrowed. “You’ve never been on a planet before?”

“No, sir.” He politely recited his service record, if abridged. A general’s time was more important than the names of all the ships he’d served on. 

She broke into a smile. “How fortunate your first encounter with a world is one so alive, so vital.”

Again, he had no idea how to answer that. “As you say, sir.”

“You don’t feel it?” She turned to face him. “Take your helmet off, trooper. Just for a moment. Breathe the air, see the light of the glow moss. Let yourself be one with this world.”

He obeyed. And tried. He really did. But he was a navy man. A trooper of durosteel and scrubbed air. Of order and angles. The heady strangeness of this green world was too strange. Too different.

But over the days that followed, he tried to see the beauty in it. As she had advised him. He could see the tactical advantage of the Wookiee villages, grown into and out of the trees themselves; the practicality of the wroshyr wood, so dense it could fend off a blaster shot; the fearless warrior spirit of the Wookiees themselves. 

He wanted, genuinely wanted, to see what General Unduli saw. The wonder she found in that strange world. 

But he never did. The mission was first and foremost. He was a trooper. He served.

And once their orders were carried out they would be collected. He would never see Kashyyyk again. 

He raised his blaster and fired. Once, twice. Stepping over the rapidly cooling body of General Luminara Unduli, he opened fire on the secondary targets, the Wookiee commanders. 

The drop-ship would be there soon. He could get back to the ship life he was more accustomed too. It would be a relief.

**Author's Note:**

> beta'd by Obickay. Much gratitude.


End file.
